Chapter 344: A Beautiful Life (La Bella Vita)

I have to learn to tell myself no. I have to learn to tell myself when to stop. I have to learn to tell myself when it's time to just give up. More than any of that, though, I have to learn to mean it. I have to learn how to not lie to myself or talk myself into changing the way I think and the way I feel. I have got to learn because right now I have no idea and it fucking sucks. I already discussed all of this in the blog from yesterday/this morning, though. All I can really add here is that today was no help at all. In fact, today only wound up making matters worse. Man, it's hard to be me sometimes. Okay, it really isn't and I should never say that again. I can't remember the last time I ever did say that or anything like it because that's how long it has been. It isn't hard to be me at all. It's actually pretty fucking fabulous to be me and I am never ever going to knock it. I absolutely love being me. Sure, it could be a whole lot easier if I were somebody else but I don't know that it would be as fun. I really can't believe the audacity of me to actually type that sentence out. Fuck me, that was fucking stupid! Things could be SO much worse. I could live in a third-world country and be struggling to survive. I could live in one of those cultures where being myself and expressing it as openly as I do day-to-day would get me killed. I could be a woman - now THAT seems like a rough life to me. There are so many things out there that could be so much worse than having "too many feelings." I seriously just kind of sickened myself with that one sentence. God, I can be fucking ridiculous sometimes. It is fucking ridiculous of me to spend even a single moment feeling sorry for myself and I vow to do everything I can to never do it again. It's like the chorus of one of my very favorite songs, "A Beautiful Life (La Bella Vita)" by Lindsay Lohan, says, "This is my beautiful life, the only thing certain is everything changes, the lows and the highs and all those goodbyes, as hard as it gets I know it's still amazing to feel alive, It's a beautiful life." It truly is and I don't ever want to allow myself to forget that.

This makes me think of an experience I had yesterday that I didn't get to mention in the blog this morning. You see, yesterday was the most boring day possible at work. Seriously, it was so slow and I was so bored pretty much all day. I posted a little blurb about it on Facebook & received a comment from one of my dearest Facebook friends, Kelly, saying that she would send me an email telling me her life story to get me through the day. Honestly, I'm pretty sure she was joking but I took her up on the offer. The email I got was pretty incredible. Now, I am not going to go into any of the details or anything because it's not my story to tell but I will say that it definitely put a lot of things into perspective for me and kind of made me stop and look at my life and my experiences a lot differently. Like I mentioned above, it is very rare that you will hear me say some shit like I did above. I don't really do self-pity, in general, and genuinely enjoy the experience of being me. As I've also mentioned in the blog several times in the past, I have been called an inspiration by many different people for many different reasons. Most recently, though, the person I have heard this from the most is Kelly, the author of this email. I love the feeling of that because my ultimate goal with my life is to be an inspiration to as many people as I possibly can. Still, not in a self-pitying way or anything, I sometimes find myself questioning whether or not these statements from people are true and, even more, whether or not I am actually worthy of them. I try my best to live my life in a way that is always true to who I am inside and keeps in mind the concept of being an example to others. There are definitely moments, though, where I feel extremely humbled and somewhat unworthy of the title of "inspiration." Those moments most frequently come when I hear somebody else's story and how much they have managed to make it through and still stay standing. This was definitely the case with Kelly's email and I feel eternally grateful to her for sharing it with me. I also feel extremely grateful to her for being probably the biggest supporter and most loyal follower of this blog from nearly the very beginning.

Just talking about that right now really took my mind off of all that other mess I've been focusing on so much. I mean, not completely. It didn't completely take my mind off of it but it did remind me to put the whole thing into perspective. After all, a few years down the road, when I am sitting with my perfect partner, my very own James Dean, this moment and this day will not even be a blip on the radar. It doesn't actually mean anything at all. I mean, the people involved definitely do but the feelings I am feeling right now and this particular day does not. So, fuck it. As I was recently telling one of my very good friends, everything will work out exactly how it is meant to, so if it is meant to happen it will happen eventually. I know, it's a little cliche but I have always believed that cliches only become cliches because they are actually statements that are universally true... Overly simplified, sure, but still true. This friend has been turning to me for a lot of advice recently and told me that I need to write a self-help book. While music has always been my main passion in life, I do also get a great deal of pleasure out of writing and have long been told that I am really good at it and that it is something that I should pursue. I never gave much thought to that whole concept, really, because I always dismissed it as not being my passion or what I REALLY wanted to do with my life. Thinking of it now, though, perhaps I was wrong about that. I mean, my main passion has always been music and my biggest dream in life has always been to become a successful musician. Underneath the surface of that dream, though, was always the same reason why - because I wanted to be an inspiration to people all over the world. I wanted to be a source of comfort to people, make them feel less alone in their lives and be a reflection of what they want to become for themselves. What I am slowly starting to realize now, though, is that I can still do that without making music. I mean, sure, music has always been my dream but it truly isn't the only way. In fact, it may not even be the most efficient way considering the fact that I lack a lot of the ability necessary to make it as a musician, most notably the ability to actually write music. One ability that I DO have, though, is the ability to write. I may not be the best writer in the world but I do have a lot of ideas and a LOT to say to the world. So, why not?

So, aside from all that, I didn't really do a whole lot today. I received one of the two big boxes o' makeup I have been anxiously awaiting since last weekend. This box is the one that I was less excited for, honestly, but I was still really happy to receive it. This was from my very favorite brand of cosmetics, Stila. It was their limited edition Jewel Eye Shadow Palette, which had become pretty hard to find and was only selling for very high prices on Ebay and such. So, I was really excited when Stila posted on their Facebook page that they were bringing it back in a limited quantity and I quickly rushed to order one for myself before they ran out. The Jewel Eye Shadow palette is a smaller than it should be eye shadow quad featuring four gorgeous new shades of eye shadow from Stila, each one filled with an insane amount of glitter. There is the lightest shade, a pale pink full of silver colored glitter called Rose Quartz, a bronze/beige full of golden/champagne colored glitter called Golden Topaz, a deep purple full of silver glitter called Amethyst and an intense black full of silver glitter called Black Diamond. Of course, as soon as this item arrived I just had to go ahead and experiment with it a bit. I put together a gorgeous look using all four shadows and was really blown away by the amount of sparkle this look had. Even more, though, I was blown away by the amount of pigment the actual shadows had - it seems like, more often than not, when these cosmetics company try to do a really glittery shadow it winds up going on as looking like a lot of glitter and not a lot of actual color. This was not the case with these shadows, though. They went on beautifully. I absolutely loved the look I did with this palette today and am already planning on wearing another look with these colors out tomorrow night when Rachel and I go out for our weekly TOTIs trip.

I wound up having a few friends over for a couple of hours this evening, which was a lot of fun. I felt a little bad because I kind of had to rush them off because I had to go run errands with my Mom when she got off work at 8pm. It was okay, though, because they had actually kind of come up with other plans while we were hanging out, anyway. So, it all worked out in the end. It is kind of funny, though, because I have become pretty close with these people, who I met at work, over the past few months but they are considerably younger than I am - like almost a decade. Age doesn't really make a whole lot of difference to me if you actually gel with people but I do find myself taking on this kind of "maternal" role with them. As they were leaving my house this evening I was sitting there telling them to put on sweaters and BE CAREFUL and all those kinds of things that you normally only get from your parents or "trustworthy adults" or whatever. It is kind of weird for me to now have to say, "Oh shit, I'm one of those adults." When the hell did that happen? When did I start being concerned with the consequences of people's actions and stuff? I must have missed the moment that it happened but it is becoming increasingly clear that it has happened. One thing that I do really appreciate about hanging out with younger people, though, is that they kind of remind me to be a little less cautious and a little less concerned about consequences and such, and remind me of how great it can feel to just say "Fuck it," and let go for a little while. This is a feeling that I have been embracing a lot lately, actually, and I think that this may have a lot to do with the people I have been surrounding myself with. It's definitely a positive move for me, I think. After all, I have been having a lot more fun in the past couple of months than I have probably throughout the rest of the almost year that I have been writing this blog and I think it probably shows... if in no other way than my little series of fucked up, drunk out of my mind video blogs. It is all good as long as I keep myself under control. That is a very important thing for me to remember. I definitely do not need to fall into some of the patterns I have fallen into in the past.

After my friends left, my Mom picked me up to go out and run some errands. We had to pick up some groceries for this weekend and go to Walgreen's to get money out of the ATM for my share of the rent and bills and such. While we were at Walgreen's I did what I do pretty much any time I walk into a Walgreen's and went on a mini-shopping spree for drugstore brand makeup. They had some really kick ass sales, too - pretty much every brand had a wide selection of items that were buy one, get one 50% off. So, I snatched up a few things that I am really excited about. I got two new Revlon kohl eyeliners, in white, which I have really been needing, and a very bright purple, which will suit many of the looks I do day to day. I also picked up two of the Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipcolors, in #1 Nude and Iconic Iris. I have become a little obsessed with liquid lipsticks because I find that they stay on so much better than a regular lipstick but look so much better than a lip stain. Plus, these colors both look gorgeous on me! I also picked up two new Maybelline blushers because I feel like I don't really have a wide selection to choose from in terms of blushes. I pretty much always just use my Stila Convertible Colors, which are great, but I don't have a large selection of colors in those. I actually learned a new technique for applying blush earlier today that I used when doing my makeup for the day and I found it to work absolutely perfectly for me. You see, I have always started by placing blush on the apples of my cheeks and blending it back towards the ear, which works out okay but never quite comes out giving the appearance of a natural flush of color. What I learned today, by way of some YouTube video I watched, was to start at the apples of the cheeks and blend downwards and continue blending downwards moving back towards the ear. I don't quite know how to explain that properly here but, essentially, it is all about blending downwards instead of side to side. It doesn't seem like that would make all that much of a difference but it really does. So, I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again - yay for drugstore makeup! I love to buy drugstore makeup for experimentation purposes, when I want to try out new things and discover different products that I like, before going out and paying the cost for high end versions of products. It works out well for me, I think. It will also make for some really good posts on my upcoming beauty blog, as well, I think.

Speaking of my upcoming beauty blog, Beauty In The Mirror, I was kind of telling my Mom about the whole concept behind it and some of the different things I wanted to do with it and her response was, "Oh, just like on Ugly Betty?" I kind of got a kick out of that comment because I hadn't made the connection before but "Ugly Betty" is one of my favorite television shows of all-time and was a huge inspiration to me in a LOT of different ways. In the fourth and final season of the show, Betty was feeling unsatisfied with the stuff that she was being asked to write for Mode Magazine, so she started a blog on which she could write about the topics that she really wanted to discuss. Her blog was focused on finding the beauty in everyday people, much like mine will be. I must have taken my inspiration from that subconsciously. As I have mentioned quite a few times recently, I am really excited to get started on that whole project. I have decided, though, that I need to buy myself a better digital camera than what I have currently. Don't get me wrong, my Sony Bloggie is brilliant as a camcorder, because that is what it is actually meant for, but it definitely leaves something to be desired in terms of still photography. So, I have decided that I need to find myself a better quality camera for actual photography because I definitely intend for photography to be a big part of my beauty blog. So, this is something that I will definitely have to research further.

It is almost 2am and I need to get myself to bed. It has been a really long day, in a lot of ways, but a really good day in a lot of ways, as well. I am happy with the results of this day looking back on it. Sure, some things are still not as clear as I had hoped they would be but I suppose that is all a part of life. What can I say about life? It ISN'T hard for me. It is fucking fabulous. Like the Lindsay Lohan song I quoted above said, "It's a beautiful life." It truly is, and I fully intend to remind myself of that every chance that I get moving forward. No more feeling sorry for myself ever again - it was a moment of weakness and I feel almost ashamed of myself for it. No more. I am moving forward with my beautiful life and, soon enough, I am going to fall in love with a beautiful man and find the way to really make something of my beautiful self. I am going to find my way to show the rest of the world what a beautiful life it can be. For now, though, I am going to hop into my beautiful bed and get a beautiful night's sleep. After all, I need to get rested up for another crazy TOTIs night tomorrow! Goodnight.